Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IN 2006, WHEN people of all fitness levels got their first and, until tomorrow, only chance to run through Dublin’s Port Tunnel, it appeared that they were at risk of being outnumbered by the cranes on the horizon.
Buildings were still being built and the boom that Bertie had spoken of was, by all accounts, still getting boomier.
The only light at the end of the tunnel that was on the minds of the near 10,000 runners who ran that day was the literal one, which came at both the five kilometre mark – when participants exited the North tunnel onto the N1, before entering the southbound tunnel – and the 10 kilometre mark.
Fast forward six years and the phrase has since taken on an all too figurative meaning, with many of tomorrow’s runners at the Dublin Port Tunnel run hoping to see some light at the end of their own personal tunnels.
Before that, however, they have a run to complete unlike any other.
While the luxury of having near constant cover may sound like the perfect solution to Ireland’s weather, running in a tunnel creates an altogether different problem in the form of body heat and recycled air aplenty.
Tomorrow’s Dublin Port Tunnel run is set to add an extra level of difficulty for those who find mini-marathons all too achievable, while at the same time raising funds for Focus Ireland.
For those who can’t make it (you can register right up until tomorrow morning), the below video offers an insight into what it felt like back in 2006, complete with the obligatory Olé, Olé, Olé at the end.
(ricmurphy/YouTube)
If that video has left you feeling inspired but still unavailable, all that lies between you and a similar experience is a plane ticket and some spontaneity.
Liverpool, England
The Queensway Tunnel, which runs under Liverpool’s River Mersey, forms part of the course for this year’s Liverpool marathon which takes place on 14 October.
The Queensway Tunnel in Liverpool, England. (Eric The Fish (2012)/Flickr)
A previous runner of the Liverpool marathon, TheJournal.ie's own Hugh O'Connell, describes the toughest section of the 26 mile run.
One of the most difficult legs of the course was going through the tunnel. It runs for around 3.2 kilometres, which is just over two miles and is dark, damp and not very pleasing on the eye but then what underwater tunnels are?
The large enclosed space can start to feel isolated, as the noise generated by the outside world gradually fades away.
The first thing I noticed when I took the descent into it - literally descending down under the water - is that there was less noise than what I had just passed which was screaming crowds as people lined the streets to urge the runners on. There was lots of that on the streets of Birkenhead but once I was in the tunnel there was none of that as the noise slowly disappeared the further and further I got into the tunnel.
And let's not forget the dead air.
It felt like it went on forever, the end was never in sight and the air was dead, with no breeze, just the sound of panting and shoes hitting the ground and a few people talking to each other as they struggled through.
As I completed the first mile and went into the second I could see the light and yet it was so far away. It certainly felt a lot closer than it actually was and that second mile was definitely slower than the first one.
Maryland, USA
For those with more air miles than miles left in the tank, the Fort McHenry Tunnel awaits where, on 16 September, you can pop your tunnel running cherry in their five kilometre run/walk.
The Fort McHenry Tunnel, Baltimore, Maryland. (dbking/Flickr)
What has been your most extreme challenge (and no, extreme ironing doesn't count)?
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Junior doctors are some of the worst treated employees in the country. Can you actually blame them?
it used to be the case that the crap treatment if juniors was compensated by the relative good treatment as a GP or consultant (part of which was a basic level of respect for the profession).
Nowadays, thanks to the total JoeDuffyication of public discourse and constant attacks on working conditions, it’s crap as a senior medic too.
So the country haemorrhages doctors, and those of us still here are thoroughly demoralized.
My son is dusting off the Aussie passport for when his stint as an intern finishes in 10 months.
We have a great relationship with our GP. Sometimes the visit only requires 5mins of her time, sometimes over an hour. She is always available when we need her. We might have to wait in the surgery for an hour while she gives her time to a previous patient but we know that if we need her time, we will have it too while everyone else waits. She works hard for her money. I wouldn’t be a doctor for all the money in the world. My daughter has mooted her ideas of perhaps becoming a doctor and I dearly hope she changes her mind. It’s not all coughs and colds passing through their door.
We screw the young so the old can keep enjoying their comfortable positions. It the same no matter where you look in the public sector.
Peter what are you on about? Not everything is the faulty of older people which is a very lazy assessment of what is happening. Nor is everything the fault of public servants. There are many reasons behind the medical brain drain and Ireland is not unique. I know several young doctors from the UK who have moved to Australia. They did this so they could work a 40 hour week, earn good money and enjoy a good lifestyle. Both were working in the NHS in the UK not in Ireland. If we want to retain doctors then we are going to have to change and improve their working conditions and to do this we will need to employ more junior doctors, more consultants and pay GPs more, not less, to see medical card patients. Good health care is expensive. Change is inevitable but it is also going to be expensive. The money is either going to have to come from increased taxation or from elsewhere in the public service. There aren’t any cheap options. Medical professionals are internationally mobile and that is the reality we now have to work within. But Ireland is by no means unique in this regard. Fixing the problem is not going to be easy as it involves very hard (and expensive) political choices and decisions as to how public expenditure should be allocated.
Pick any department. You’ll find the unions so entrenched that its impossible to change anyone’s pay and conditions. They only thing they can do is screw any new people starting (I.e. the young people). Older people can retire on their big fat defined benefit pensions that are only a crazy dream for anyone under 30.
In part you’re right peter. Look at the consultant contract, if a new consultant started he might make half or a third of his colleagues. What did the existing consultants do when the new salary was reduced by 30% – nothing.
Totally agree, unfortunately Mary Harney and James Reilly were only able to introduce poor conditions for young consultants and GPs because they allowed the older generation keep their more attractive contracts. Thus the older generation were happy to stand by and watch, safe in the knowledge that their contracts were protected. Unfortunately for them their narrow mindedness will now come back to bite them as they slowly realize that their selfishness has resulted difficulty in finding appropriately qualified colleagues.
The brain drain is hitting all professions! Train them up and let them go! Sad
It’s a case of availability of opportunities and quality of life unfortunately. Despite what is sometimes said, Ireland offers a high level of undergraduate and post graduate training. It’s how we can still attract the level of applicants we do from Ireland and abroad. We end up generating high numbers of English speaking doctors who have absolutely no problem passing registration and profession examinations in other countries. I’ve met consultants in the UK who actively try to recruit Irish junior docs as they feel that they are more dynamic, independent thinking, and capable than those who come through ‘run-through’ training in the UK
However once they’ve qualified in Ireland it’s not a terribly attractive place to continue to work. If your’e a GP, working in an 8 or9 doctor practice in the UK with time given for training, administration and professional development is far more attractive than trying to set up in Ireland in a 1,2 or 3 Dr Practice and a Medical Card clientele, if you can get one, which you can’t treat properly because the contract is now 30 years out of date.
Most Irish county hospitals cannot recruit Irish junior doctors and the main way they can get them is having them attached there as part of a ‘training’ scheme. A lot of these at SHO level are GP trainees used to prop up failing hospitals that can’t maintain a legal on-call rota. A measure to basically sustain non viable hospitals then results in even more disincentive for juniors to stay in Ireland.
20% have gone but be careful – If my maths is correct there’s still 80% hoping to take your temperature, peep in your ear and then stick their hand out for €60.
- Never forgetting if there’s any uncertainty involved (googling it) or brainpower required they’ll just refer you to A&E – but still ask for their €60 on the way out the door.
Thieves.
Productive comment. Well done.
The taxpayer subsidizes their medical education in Ireland; once qualified they swan off to the higest bidder overseas chasing the gravy.
Doctors clearly aren’t in it for the good of your health.
It wouldnt be good for their health to stay here working 80 hours a week.
Are we supposed to be in it for the good of your health (puns aside)? Being a doctor is a job, and one which we do to earn our daily wage. If the working conditions are poor here and the conditions are better abroad wouldn’t we be fools to stay?
I’d prefer to see doctors who are trained by the taxpayer to look after our sick to give a little back, rather than line their pockets.
Seems ethical and fair to me.
GPs and their pricing cartel for a 5 minute consultation don’t seem to be too worried if people can afford to go to them. Where’s the competition or compassion in that?
Expect away. The simple truth is that when doctors go to college (just as with everyone else in this country) there is no requirement to stay after graduation. Once again, wouldn’t they be fools to put up with poor working conditions when they didn’t have to? And perhaps more time should be spent looking at the conditions that are driving them away as opposed to considering ways to make them stay against their will?
GPs work 80 hous a week?
And john, can you blame them having to listen to your whinging all the time?
That’s a myth most of medical education is funded by fees charged to foreign students Kuwaiti and Malaysian Andthe north Americans – of course graduate entry students Pay their own way. Cost compares favourably to an arts student
Or a patients health!
Yes reg. Many of us do !
Those who have qualified as doctors and trained as GPs in Ireland have given a minimum of 5 years of service to the public health service. At that point, we are required to go and set up as private businesses, with all associated costs e.g. mortgage for the practice, staff, utilities, equipment, insurance. Until recently it was difficult to even gain the right to see public patients. Those that do deal with 90% of all consultations for 3% of the health budget. Many of the services we provide are effectively for free, as they didn’t exist when the public contract was drawn up and are therefore not reimbursed by the government.
How many came here to qualify in the first place and always intended on leaving is the first question I’d ask, but then again i!m not a journalist….
Probably 0.
It’s not medical school, it’s postgraduate training. As a training position, it’s tough to get into. It’s much easier get into the UK training scheme, so anyone who wants to leave would go for that scheme, rather than waste time and effort going for the Irish one.
@David. There’s probably a number of places for non EU students. This is normal for pg courses across many disciplines as they bring in huge amounts of money and raise the institute’s profile internationally.
David my daughter is doing post grad medicine and there is a significant amount of non EU students cos believe it or not it’s cheaper here than say the USA or Canada to study medicine, but the vast majority go home when they qualify…who in their right mind would stay here and work those insane hours, they’re downright dangerous.
Hi Anne Marie & Joan, I’m commenting about professional training as a GP, not graduate medical entry training. Entry to GP training is not run by any of the universities, and there are no guaranteed non-EU places.
Entrants must have a medical degree and at least completed their intern year. If people are from the US or UK, they will complete their intern year, then head off home for training. Pretty much anyone who applies to the Irish GP training scheme will plan to stay in ireland, as it’s easier to get onto a UK scheme.
Waste of our limited resources, contract them to work in public system for 10 yes post training or lower entry levels to ensure we have sufficient for our needs.
Do you mean offer them a contract or force them to accept a contract? And the idea of just training more has been mooted before, I’m not sure it’s viable. Each of those new graduates (competency aside) could still decide to go to other countries for better working conditions, so Ireland ends up putting more and more money into training much larger classes of doctors only to see them leave in even larger numbers. Surely the best solution is to find more positive ways to motivate current graduates to stay?
It’s also worth mentioning that our medical schools are a part of the education that is self sustaining, and in many cases profit making because of the number of foreign and post grad students. It’s not costing you a penny Jarlath.
They don’t start with the intention to leave. They eventually leave because they actually care about the patients and the system here eats at their souls.
I love the way the govt thinks just throw money at them, that’ll solve the problem. I suppose that would work for demotivated politicians. There are some people, however, who say: Keep your money, I want change.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/15702350@N00/1318737291/
Good man Jarlath, once we bring in indentured servitude for all the history and biotech and architecture and project management and drama and chemistry and archaeology grads, I’m sure doctors wouldn’t mind.
Until then, if you want docs to stay in this godforsaken country you need to make it an attractive option.
For lots of us at this point the only reason we’re still here is because of financial/social/family ties.
When even the GPs are leaving you know things are properly bad.
I have to say that I’m shocked at how low this number is. I’d estimate 60-80% of my engineering year (Trinity College) are now living and working abroad. Doctors have it good in comparison in terms of options for work at home if 80% can find a way to stay.
Every time I go to the GP or consultant I would understand 75% of what they say at first, I must ask them to repeat again and sometimes I end up with the felling that he might have said something else. Not being racists but something as serious as medicine we should be able to understand without question what the doctor says. Sad to see Ireland is not good enough for our doctors but good enough for Asian/African doctors, we became some sort of “In the middle” class for doctors
You’re doing pretty well if you understand 75%. Most studies show that patients might understand just 20% of what goes on in a consultation. Communication is a (very) unexact science, and has to be tailored to each patient, and depends on their background/culture/education.
On a positive note, 80% stayed?
Better to frame that as “haven’t left”, because it’s more accurate.
May be in exchange for the subsidized fees they should bind the docs for working in this country for X number of yrs. You take some you give some.
That comment comes up on these pages with depressing regularity. It’s flawed for a number of reasons. 1. To do that fairly you would have to apply it across all college courses, otherwise you’re just singling out one section of the populace. 2. If you force people to stay you now have a group of thoroughly demotivated doctors who can’t get out of the system – not optimal for the patients under their care each day. 3. You’re only forcing the most junior grades to stay. The more senior grades, especially at the consultant level, will continue to be drawn overseas, and probably even more so in response to this draconian ‘solution’ being applied to doctors. 4. This wouldn’t even come into effect for around 5-6 years (good luck applying it to current med students), and would take even more time after that to have a significant effect on the lack of junior doctors. And finally 5. – probably most importantly, this approach would mean the government doesn’t have to do anything to actually improve working conditions for doctors in Ireland, allowing things to just get worse over time. Did I miss anything?
Nice to have figures of graduates who came as international students. Large numbers go to RCSI. Maybe they’re just going home
About 95% of international students would go home. Medical schools take about 50% of their students from abroad, as they need someone to pay for the costs of medical training – as the taxpayer pays relatively little. (Unlike the gibberish that some people might rant about here)
The headline should read; Despite the negative message produced by a ‘whinging about low pay campaign’ which aims to entrench a right to a €250,000 salary (plus private earnings), 80% of 2010′s medical graduates remain in Ireland, while 80% of civil engineering graduates emigrated.
Go away with your lies.
The IMA are out in force today.
ya, and 80% of them live here. Surely thats the real headline.
Low pay here.What do you expect.
Although sometimes I wonder.The fees for a visit to an ordinary GP are sky high.
They are, far too high. The reason for this is private (non-medical card holding) patients are effectively subsidising medical card holders, because the medical card scheme is drastically underfunded by the HSE. GPs see 90% of all consultations in the country for 3% of the health budget. In the UK, GPs are given 10% of the budget and were recently campaigning for 11%, as the 9% they were getting at the time was deemed not to be enough.
That €60 isn’t going into the GP’s pocket, it’s making up for their attempt to provide proper healthcare for little money to those who can least afford it.
Dead right.Once it is away from Europe.
have your say